The dodo became extinct 175 years before Lewis Carroll introduced his favorite bird to his favorite little girl in “Alice in Wonderland.”
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John Tenniel's classic illustration of Alice and the Dodo, along with a modern reconstruction • Photo by BazzaDaRambler (CC BY 2.0)
Photo by Al Soot on Unsplash
What most everyone knew in 1492
When I was a kid I had a picture book about Christopher Columbus. One page showed a Spanish galleon sailing off the edge of a flat Earth.
Photo by v2osk on Unsplash
We’re more than the sum of our parts
Charles Sims is in town looking for sperm. Sims is co-founder of California Cryobank Inc., one of the nation’s largest sperm banks.
Photo by Jp Valery on Unsplash
More exciting spinoffs — this time from the Big Ear
Karl Munchausen called the other day. Karl is Public Relations Officer for the Big Ear Project. As usual, he was trying to drum up media attention for the Big Ear.
An abandoned schoolroom in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster • Photo by Mick De Paola on Unsplash
The threefold sins of science
It’s time for scientists to pay their dues, says Dai Rees.
Benjamin Franklin at his desk • Mezzotint by engraver Edward Fisher, ca. 1763
On plate tectonics, old Ben got it right 200 years ago
Benjamin Franklin is usually depicted as a grandfatherly fellow, portly and genial, who would be at home by the fire of an 18th-century tavern, with a long-stemmed pipe in one hand and a tankard of porter in the other. In the familiar portrait of Franklin by his contemporary Edward Fisher, the great man seems fixed to his chair by a kind of weary contentment.
A potato leaf with Phytophthora infestans • Photo by Howard F. Schwartz (CC BY 3.0)
Spuds vs. fungus: A historic battle rages on
In the field below, my neighbor Danny Murphy is spraying his potatoes, a bright yellow tank of fungicide strapped to his back. Potatoes are prone to a troublesome variety of diseases, but Danny’s principal enemy is the fungus Phytophthora infestans, called blight.
The nebula surrounding the Crab Pulsar • Optical: NASA/HST/ASU/J. Hester et al. X-Ray: NASA/CXC/ASU/J. Hester et al.
It took a gift for fancy to come up with relativity
Einstein said: “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”
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To the know-it-alls: Baloney
In 1933, to celebrate its own centenary, the city of Chicago hosted a world’s fair celebrating a “Century of Progress” in science and industry. The official guide book quoted the poet Whittier: “And step by step, since time began, I see the steady gain of Man.”
Photo by Deva Darshan on Unsplash
The Energizer bunnies of evolution
Anyone who has watched a dragonfly scout a summer pond has seen one of the wonders of evolution.